You Can Buy a Dumb Spinning Top Like the One From ‘Inception’ for Just $195
Credit to Author: Drew Schwartz| Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2019 21:00:00 +0000
Every year come Christmastime, thousands of poor souls receive gifts from parents and siblings and children who have absolutely no idea what to get them, gifts they will either literally never use or, at best, will fiddle around with exactly once right after they open them, only to tuck them back into whatever box they came in and shove them into a closet. Fitting squarely into this category are the wares peddled by ForeverSpin™, a company that makes fancy, absurdly expensive spinning tops virtually guaranteed to wind up under a shit ton of trees this year, thanks to a digital ad campaign launched full-force a week before Christmas.
The tops, which are basically identical to the one Leo DiCaprio uses in Inception, start at $38, and increase in price based on the metal they're made of. There's the 24-karat gold one ("a perfect desk ornament"), listed at $68; there's the Damascus steel one ("one of a kind, like you!"), listed at $98; and then, at the top of the heap, is the tungsten one ("the spinning masterpiece"), which goes for the low, not-at-all insane price of $195.
Who would ever want one of these? What's the point? Why the hell are they so expensive? ForeverSpin™ has attempted to answer all of these questions and more, to various degrees of incoherence and syntactically deranged word-mashing. Here are a few golden nuggets from its website:
- "Every spinning top that leaves our hands to become part of your life—and we mean every single one—is built on the same belief: that a top is more than just a toy. That, above all, a top must be absolutely simple, elegant and designed forever."
- "According to recent studies, fiddling with items at your desk can aid thought process and improve productivity!"
- "Perhaps you need a little boost in creativity or focus, or you need to de-stress a bit. Maybe you're in search of a gift that lasts forever or want to compare weight and touch different metals. Or you just like a bit of competition or you love minimalistic art. Engineers, kids, designers, collectors… No matter how old, how wise and how smart you become there will be something in it for you Forever."
- "Your spinning top will forever remain a timeless, elegant piece of art that will be loved by your children’s children."
If all that isn't enough to convince you that you need a dreidel with no sides made out of rose gold, ForeverSpin™ put together a glitzy video flaunting all the ways their tops can bring joy into your life. Spin them at the office! Spin them in a bizarre, tiny classroom in which four specially selected students study the physics of spinning tops! Spin them at a sick party where a bunch of twentysomethings just stand around a table and… spin tops!
The fun doesn't stop there: You can buy a fancy gold base to spin your top on for $68, or a brass dock that holds up to five tops for $67. If you're somehow convinced you want all of these things, and a boatload of tops to go with them, you can purchase something called a MetalMuseum™—10 tops and two docks, all for just 475 real US dollars.
May we all take pity on the idea-strapped 20-year-old who buys one of these things and gives it to their stepbrother, forced to uncomfortably explain why they got it for him. ("I know you loved Inception, and this is basically that thing Leo has, only it's like really nice and, uh… have you heard about that new Christopher Nolan movie?") If you happen to be that unfortunate stepbrother, welp: Sorry dude. Better luck next year.
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This article originally appeared on VICE US.